One Tough Cop: Former Boxer Became A Legendary Hartford Officer

EDITORIAL

February 07, 2013

Billy Kearns, who died this week at 86, was the kind of cop they make movies about. He was a welterweight boxer and a sparring partner of Willie Pep's who hung up the gloves in the 1950s after 108 pro fights to become one of the toughest, shrewdest street cops in Hartford.

He became a homicide detective in the 1970s. As a high-ranking officer told The Courant, "Kearns may be unconventional, but he's solved six murders in a row." One was a stabbing in the Charter Oak Terrace housing project. There was a crowd around the body as Mr. Kearns arrived. He had a hunch the assailant was present. But how to find him?

Quickly scanning the crowd, Mr. Kearns spotted one of his informants. He looked quickly into the man's eyes, then looked at the left edge of the crowd. The informant gave a barely perceptible shake of the head "no." He then looked into the middle of the crowd. The informant nodded. Kearns looked closely and saw a man with blood on his pants. Next case.

Rock-jawed and muscular, Mr. Kearns was a kind of urban samurai; his code of working the streets was about respect. You keep yourself in shape, you do the right thing, you'll respect yourself and others will respect you.

He saw the proliferation of guns in the city and hated it because, he said, guns "put death in the hands of cowards." He said a drive-by shooting " is the ultimate act of cowardice."